Sand in My Shoes
by AnabelleG
Summary: Brennan rents a cottage by the sea for some quiet time to finish her latest novel, only to have Booth show up on her front porch one morning.


**A/N: So it turns out that I can write something beside angst after all. No turmoil, real crisis, hidden meanings, character deaths, misunderstandings, dreariness, doom or even gloom here. Just a longish fluffy-ish bit that I've been dabbling with for a while now. As always, hope you find it interesting. -Ana**

A month ago, book number four was well underway. It was going so well, in fact, that she assured both her agent and her publisher that there would be no problem at all with moving up the deadline for the first draft. Three days later, she stopped typing in the middle of a sentence. Without warning, the plot and characters she knew so well seemed to vanish. Without warning, Brennan ran face first into a giant concrete wall of writer's block.

With characteristic discipline she still devoted herself to the self-prescribed writing schedule. Only those hours were spent staring at a blinking cursor on a very blank page. Now there were almost daily calls from an increasingly strident agent and the specter of failure had become unacceptably plausible. So Brennan gave in to the cure of last resort.

She googled.

Seventy-eight mouse clicks later she had cobbled together a troublingly contradictory list. Write every day. Don't try to write. Be spontaneous. Be controlled. Read a great novel. Read drivel. Break routine. Adhere to routine.

Three hours and fourteen minutes later she had an Angela-certified definition of drivel, printed and digitally stored copies of her stalled novel, a well-packed suitcase and a reservation for a cottage on the Virginia coast.

Four days later writer's block was the least of her problems, because she was quite certain that she was losing her mind.

xxxxx

Booth knocked on the door again and glanced back to confirm that it was her car in the driveway. He definitely had the right place. Maybe he should have called first. But he needed original signatures on the evidence report, and it was such a short drive to the coast and…he really should have called first.

Shoving thoughts of faxes, emails and Federal Express out his head, he sat down on the porch swing, figuring that he could relax for a few minutes while waiting for Brennan to return from wherever she'd wandered. As he made himself comfortable, he noticed a paperback novel she'd left facedown on a small nearby table. Curious, he flipped it over and laughed aloud when he saw the title.

" '_The Flames of Passion'._ Bones, you are just _full_ of surprises," he said as he scanned the two figures on the cover, a woman in a peekaboo red dress clinging to a shirtless—duke? Pirate?

Still chuckling, he returned the book to its resting place, filing it away for the next time she touted her more high-brow cultural tastes. Five minutes later, bored with watching the waves and the seagulls, he picked up the book and began idly flipping through its pages. Just to pass the time.

xxxxx

She stood at the edge of the first step, a small smile growing as she watched him turn the page, so completely absorbed in the book Angela loaned her that he hadn't noticed her presence.

"Some sniper you must have been," she finally said after a few moments, unable to resist the unexpected opportunity. He tensed, the movement so slight that she almost missed it, then spoke without looking in her direction.

"I knew you were there."

"Mm-hm," she murmured as she next to him on the swing, close enough to notice the pronounced blush deepening even as he tried casually place the book at his side and out of sight.

"I see you're no longer in denial about the development of your feminine side,"

"Just passing the time, Bones, waiting for _somebody_ to show up. And just so you know I was only reading this chapter about the sword fight…."

"Sword fight?"

"Yeah, see, this evil pirate captain was trying to kidnap Lady Fiona and this Raneleigh guy, the Duke, he…," he paused, clearing his throat. "Uh, very—manly stuff. Never mind."

They lapsed into silence—awkward on his part, amused on hers—before a question occurred to her.

"Why are you here, Booth?"

Lost somewhere between embarrassment over being caught reading a trashy romance novel and the contentment that came with simply sitting close to her, he was caught off guard by her direct question. The answer came only when she reached for the file he'd forgotten.

"Oh. Evidence log. Caroline, um, she requested an original signature."

"Requested?" Brennan asked with a raised brow.

"Well, more like threatened to 'tan my hide' if I didn't have the paperwork in order before the grand jury reconvenes," he said, offering her a pen. He watched as she efficiently scanned the pages before signing the last one. Once she returned the file to him, silence quickly descended again.

"So."

"So."

"How's the vacation?"

"It's not a vacation, Booth. It's a writer's retreat, " she paused, taking a deep breath."And it was a mistake."

"C'mon, Bones, it's gorgeous here. How bad can it be?"

And because he was the one she trusted with her fears, she told him. About the blinking cursor and the agent's calls that she allowed to go to voice mail. About her dutiful effort to attempt everything her internet search had yielded on the subject of writer's block.

"…..so I've made a new list every day. And still, nothing."

"So let me see this list." Noticing her reluctance, he nudged her arm. "What can it hurt?"

She withdrew a small square of neatly folded paper from her pocket, hesitating before holding it out to him.

"You're not going to laugh?"

"Promise," he replied, going as far as to cross his heart before she handed over his list. He unfolded the page and quickly scanned the list she had made. And he didn't laugh, not once, because he kept his promises. But it was difficult. Very difficult.

"I think I see the problem," he said when he finally trusted himself to speak.

"What? How could you possibly…from a list?"

Patiently, he turned the page to her, pointing at the title she'd neatly written at the top.

" 'Objective: Be Spontaneous.'," he quoted.

"Yes. But Booth, I…"

He ignored her, continuing to trace his finger down the list of numbered, categorized tasks, each marked with a precise check.

"Bones," he said, leaning closer. "You can't itemize spontaneity. You have just, you know, go with the flow."

"Go with the flow," she said, drawing out each word as if trying to translate a foreign language.

He looked at her, wondering how to explain the concept, when it occurred to him that sometimes actions spoke more loudly than words. Standing quickly, he shoved the list in his pocket, then reached for her hand and gently urged her to her feet.

"What are you doing, Booth?" she asked, her expression guarded.

"We're going to be spontaneous."

"I don't think…"

'There you go, Bones. Don't think," he said, ignoring her protests as he guided her down the porch steps. "See, you're already getting the hang of it."

xxxxx

Within minutes, he was strolling down the beach, an irritated and slightly argumentative Brennan trailing not far behind.

"I've already tried this, Booth. Walking on the beach."

"Mm-hm."

"It didn't work."

"Un-huh."

"And I'm getting sand in my shoes."

"So take 'em off."

"But…"

"A little sand never hurt….Hey, what's that?" he asked, pointing at a structure, hazy in the distance.

"The pier. There's a few shops, an arcade and…"

"That's where we're going," he said, taking off without giving her a chance to respond.

"Wait….Booth!"

She raised her hand to shield her eyes from the sun, watching as he continued toward the distant pier. Then he turned, walking backwards as he shouted back to her.

"C'mon, Bones. It'll be fun. Don't you trust me?"

She held out for another second, then sighed and went to join him, not having the heart to tell him that she'd already been to the pier on her own and found it anything but fun.

xxxxx

She shrieked with laughter as the small wave crashed over her bare feet, still running, knowing that the chase was still on, and his threat to 'dunk' her was very real. Only once she was above the tide line did she stop, giving him a chance to catch up.

"No more," she said, holding out one arm to ward off any further attempts to drag her into the water.

"Hey, I'm not the one that started with the splashing."

"Only after you….," she dodged as he feinted to one side. "Okay, okay. Truce?"

"Truce," he agreed before settling down on the sand, only mildly surprised when she joined him. They remained there, sitting in easy silence, watching the horizon change as the sun set behind them.

"Admit it," he finally said, nudging her with his shoulder. "You had fun today."

"I did."

She never considered denying it. The truth was that she had enjoyed every minute of it. Pinball and air hockey in the arcade. Mugging for the photo booth. Chili dogs and ice cream cones. The scaled down Ferris Wheel. Even dancing to music from a local band that had set up under a nearby tent. He'd filled the day and not once had she considered the unfinished book waiting for her back at the cottage.

The book. The reminder startled her, tension quickly returning to wipe out her lighthearted mood. Before she could say anything, she sensed Booth shifting beside her.

"Hey, I almost forgot. I got you something," he said, reaching into his pocket.

"You didn't have to…."

Her words trailed off as she saw what he was holding. A cheap tin ring shaped as a skull, its silvery paint already flaking. She recognized it immediately as one of the trinket prizes from the case at the arcade.

"Booth…"

"Just a reminder," he said, placing it in the palm of her hand. "You know, about…."

"Going with the flow," she finished for him as she slid the ring onto her finger. "Thank you."

"No big deal. Got it with the tickets I won at…" He froze as she leaned in and kissed his cheek.

"Thank you, Booth. For today. For coming to my rescue."

"Yeah, I'm a regular Duke Whathisname," he joked.

"No," she said, shaking her head. "Not even close."

"No?"

"He's fiction and you are…" she paused, searching for the right word. "You're Booth."

"I know this is usually your line, but I don't know what that means."

"But I do."

He looked at her, waiting there in the fading twilight, and wondered if this was the time, the moment, to cross the line and tell her how he felt, the real reason that he'd shown up on her doorstep that morning. Be spontaneous. The words of the day echoed in his head and he opened his mouth, still unsure of what he would say.

A short yelp was all that emerged, the cold dash of the rising tide rushing over their bare feet stealing away the chance to say more. They scrambled quickly for higher ground, standing there brushing the sand from their clothes as they watched the next wave wash away the impressions they'd made in the sand.

xxxx

That night, Brennan never opened her laptop, never faced the blinking cursor that had taunted her for the last several days.

Instead, she stood on the front porch of her rented cottage by the sea, watching until red taillights disappeared into the distance.

Then she walked inside, to the table in the kitchen, where she placed a series of items. A paperback book. A strip of small black and white photographs. A torn ticket stub and toy ring. She almost added a carefully folded square of paper, then changed her mind at the last minute, crumpling it in her fist before dropping into the waste bin.

Finally, she sat down before a blank tablet, faintly smiling as she picked up the yellow No. 2 pencil beside it.

And she wrote.


End file.
